When I received a pre-approved credit card solicitation from Orchard Bank, it said nothing about annual fees associated with the card. So when I called to respond to solicitation, the first thing I asked an account representative was whether or not the card had an annual fee. I was assured it did not. I made it very clear that unless the card had no annual fee and the introductory APR was locked at 0% for the first 12 months, I had no interest whatsoever to open that account.
Again, I was assured by the account manager on the phone that the APR was indeed 0% for the first year and there was no annual fee. I also stated I was not interested in any other bogus fees, like proetection insurance, and such. I stated that the only thing I want to see on my monthly statements, were my purchases, and nothing else -otherwise, I have no interest in the product offered.
Lo and behold, when I got my first statement, annual fee of $39 was listed there. After calling the 800 Customer Service # being placed on hold for about 6 minutes, I finally got to a customer service rep. After hearing my complaint, she informed me that she needs to transfer me to another account manager. I then repeated my complaint to the account manager. She informed me she regretted I was "misleaded" (her words, not mine - unfortunately, the lady possessed very poor command of English language) and said she will go ahead and close the account even though they were "sorry to lose my business".
I pointed out to her that if she was truly sorry about losing my business, the right (and ethical) thing to do was to deliver on their promise of no annual fee card and waive that fee. She said again she was very sorry but she could not help me in any other way. I asked he if she really thought that the bank was actually going to collect the fee I was promised not to be charged in the first place, to which she replied, "if you don't pay us, we'll report you to all three national credit bureaus". Great practice, eh?
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